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The Germans had about 30,000 troops in Norway in 1945, plus whatever spare weapons were in the supply tail, so considering that some were undoubtedly destroyed by some units at surrender, there are not a lot of these available, probably no more than 30,000. When they came on the market about 15 years ago they did not last long.
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30,000??? They would have been outnumbered nearly two to one by the resistance...
The Germans had 400,000 troops in Norway in early 1945, but some of those were sent back to defend Germany in the last weeks of the war. If memory serves, 385,000 German troops surrendered in Norway in May, plus nearly 100,000 non military Germans such as secretaries, bureaucrats, SS, Gestapo etc.
I doubt many weapons were destroyed, the surrender was well organized. So several hundred thousand of these rifles ended up in Norwegain hands, and that's where most of them still are. Heck, I have a half dozen here in the room with me as I type this. A huge buttload were rebuilt with heavy match barrels and target aperture sights and sold through the Norwegian National Rifle Association for competition use.
The rifles that hit the market 15-ish years ago came from the last batch collecting dust in military stores, 20-25,000 rifles. I'm guessing most of those are still in the country too, which is why they are "rare" outside of Norway. I think the price here is still less than $200.
